Which he had proved must be the case
  (If it hadn’t already taken place): 
  He called on his readers to fear and dread it,
  Whilst he wrote it,—­whilst they read it!”
  “How simple!  How beautifully simple,” said he,
  “And obvious was the remedy! 
  Look back a century or so—­
  And there was the ancient Norman bow,
  A weapon (he gave them leave to laugh)
  Efficient, better, cheaper by half: 
  (He knew quite well the age abused it
  Because, forsooth, the Normans used it)
  These, planted in the citadel,
  Would reach the walls say,—­very well;
  There, having spent their utmost force,
  They’d drop down right, as a matter of course,
  A thousand miles!  Think—­a thousand miles! 
  What was the weight for driving piles
  To this?  He calculated it—­
  ’Twould equal, when both Houses sit,
  The weight of the entire building,
  Including Members, paint, and gilding;
  But, if a speech or the address
  From the throne were given, something less,
  Because, as certain snores aver,
  The House is then much heavier.

  Now this, though very much a rub like
  For Ministers, convinced the public;
  And Priam, who liked to hear its brays
  To any tune but “the Marseillaise,”
  Summoned a Privy Council, where
  ’Twas shortly settled to confer
  On Helenus a sole command
  Of Specials.—­He headed that daring band!

  And sixteen Specials in Priam’s keep
    Got up from their mahogany;
  They smoked their pipes in silence deep
    Till there was such a fog—­any
  Attempt to discover the priest in the smother
  Had bothered old Airy and Adams and t’other
  And—­Every son of an English mother.

    June, 1848.

No.  II.  Swift’s Dunces

“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the DUNCES are all in confederacy against him.”—­Swift.

How shall we know the dunces from the man of genius, who is no doubt our superior in judgment, yet knows himself for a fool—­by the proverb?

At least, my dear Doctor, you will let me, with the mass of readers, have clearer wits than the dunces—­then why should I not know what you are as soon as, or sooner than Bavius, &c.—­unless a dunce has a good nose, or a natural instinct for detecting wit.

Now I take it that these people stigmatized as dunces are but men of ill-balanced mental faculties, yet perhaps, in a great degree, superior to the average of minds.  For instance, a poet of much merit, but more ambition, has written the “Lampiad,” an epic; when he should not have dared beyond the Doric reed:  his ambitious pride has prevented the publication of excellent pastorals, therefore the world only knows him for his failure.  This, I say, is a likely man to become a detractor; for his good judgment shows the imperfections of most works, his own included; his ambition (an ill-combination of self-conscious worth and spleen) leads him to compare works of the highest repute; the works of contemporaries; and his own.  In all cases where success is most difficult, he will be most severe; this naturally leads him to criticise the very best works.